Lost in the whole Rush controversy is this: the sports media does have biases and people it roots for - the underdog. Really, when you think about it, the underdog overcoming obstacles to succeed is really main dramatic plotline of all of sports. The media looks for and hypes this story every chance it gets, and part of it is looking for "non-traditional" athletes to succeed. Any time a player is not the norm for his or her sport or position, the media overhypes him or her, including if that person's race is not the norm. Michael Chang. Jason Seahorn. Dana Rosenblatt. Any white playground-style basketball player (remember the ridiculous overhyping of that white rookie point guard for Sacremento whose name I can't even remember now?). I'm actually digging for examples of non-white guys - which I'm sure there are - but am not coming up woth much.

Anyway, as I said before, that was black quarterbacks 15, 10, maybe even 5 years ago. But not now. But of course Rush, being Rush, doesn't chose Jason Seahorn or Jeremy Shockey or Peyton Manning to make this point. He choses an example that's completely outdated, only because it fits his agenda. Even if Rush had said something like "the media hypes up black quarterbacks because they want untraditional players to succed" I'd have given him the benefit of the doubt, even though it's not really true anymore. But he framed it in the starkest "the media likes black atheletes more than white atheletes" way, and plus he brings a political comment completely out of left field on a football show, when you could tell nobody else on the panel had a clue he was going to do it, or how to respond. I don't really blame them for not calling bullshit on it right away, it's tough for anyone to get their toughts together in the 10 seconds they have when a completely irrelevant thing comes up. While I wouldn't call it racist, I would call it totally unprofessional. I probably wouldn't have fired him if I were ESPN, but I would have told him to keep his political agenda off the air, and the next time he tried to sneak in some bullshit like that he'd be canned.

This obviously was not an off-the-cuff observation by Rush, he was trying to get his political agenda in during a sports show. For which ESPN has nobody to blame but themsleves, for hiring a political commentator for a football show, which is my biggest problem.

Have guys talk about sports who know sports! I mean really know sports, not "I'm a big fan" know sports. No more Rush, no more Dennis Miller, no more Tom Arnold. Please, hire people who know what they are talking about and want to talk about it, not people who you think are going to get you a bump in the ratings. It just leads to shit like this.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about 'man on dog' with a United States Senator. It's sort of freaking me out."

Why would Rush use Peyton Manning as an example? What obstacles has he overcome? I really don't see the flow of your argument, first you stay that people cheer for the underdog, which is true(and American). And that people cheer and root for white basketball players when they make it big(Isaiah Thomas comment already brought up). Then you say, "the media likes black athletes more than white athletes". Rush did NOT fram his argument that way. He did say quarterbacks and coaches(who he defended quite zealously on his program during the summer BEFORE, BEFORE he had started on ESPN). Black quarterbacks are not as common as white quarterbacks, they have a different style. They make very athletic and exciting plays, which are fun to watch. But what Rush is saying is that those plays don't really lead to success in the NFL. Look at Akili Smith, I grew up watching him kick ass at Oregon, now look at him. And to kick race out of the example, look at Heisman winner Eric Crouch!

And then you say that the commentators didn't know what to say and were completely dumbfounded by Rush. You haven't read enough about this situation. The entire show is planned out before it is done. Everybody know what everybody is going to say, otherwise it would be too hard to plan out segments. That is why there wasn't controversy till Wednesday. And Rush does know a thing or two about sports. He used to work for a MLB team, the Royals if my memory serves me correct.

You Samoans are all the same. You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture.

I'm saying that the color of McNabb's skin has little (if anything) to to with whether or not he is overrated.

KGriffey: On the Dan Patrick show, DP talked with Michael Irvin on the air, and relayed something from Tom Jackson. From what they both said, Rush's contributions to the show weren't planned out, in order to have some spontaneity. Steve Young managed to be pretty successful running around and scrambling and doing things eerily similar to the "black quarterback" style.

Again, if he says McNabb is overrated, and doesn't say its because he's black and the media wants a black QB to succeed, I don't have a problem. I disagree with it, but if he can bring the stats and facts to back it up, thats fine. If he had some talent around him on the offensive side, I don't think we're having this discussion at all, but the guys he has are mostly stiffs.

(edited by Whitebacon on 7.10.03 0932)Cub Fear looms for fans in Atlanta, San Francisco, and Florida.

Originally posted by WhitebaconI'm saying that the color of McNabb's skin has little (if anything) to to with whether or not he is overrated.

In case you were responding to me, I was inquiring to kgriffey about this statement:

Originally posted by kgriffey79 And then you say that the commentators didn't know what to say and were completely dumbfounded by Rush. You haven't read enough about this situation. The entire show is planned out before it is done. Everybody know what everybody is going to say, otherwise it would be too hard to plan out segments. That is why there wasn't controversy till Wednesday.

I phrased what I said very poorly, but yes I think it was a factor. If the crew of the show were outraged, they would have made noise about it, but they didn't. I don't think they thought anything of it.

My bad

You Samoans are all the same. You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture.

I really like Randle El and I want to see him at QB, not being "Slash 2002." Hopefully somewhere soon he will be given a chance to play QB. The guy was electric from the QB spot in college, thats where he should be.